Vineyard Deceit (10 page)

More popping sounds from the south fence. Voices from beyond the corner of the house. A floodlight went on, illuminating the south lawn. I turned and walked back past the veranda diners to the north end of the house. I waited in another shadow, staring through the darkness, watching for movement from this side.

“What's going on, for God's sake?” asked a voice behind me. “All this commotion.”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just some college kids using up the last of their Fourth of July fireworks.”

“Oh.” The voice went away. I kept looking into the night.

Nothing happened. After a while a man in a uniform came around the corner of the house and along to the veranda. I recognized him when a window light touched his face.

“Grady Flynn,” I said to him from the shadows. He started and raised his flashlight. “Don't turn it on,” I said. “You'll worry the guests. It's me, J. W. Jackson. What's going on?”

He came close and peered at me. “It's nothing,” he said. “I thought it was a damned Uzi or something. I never heard an Uzi, but that's what I first thought. Jeesus. You know what it was? It was firecrackers. Somebody
tossed them over the fence and then ran off through the woods. Kids! Scared the hell out of me.”

“Nobody got onto the grounds from there or from the docks?”

“No. Bunch of drunks down there. Lots of noise. They had a keg and wanted to join the party. They went off somewhere else. Be lucky if that damned boat doesn't sink out from under them. Must be a dozen people aboard. Harbormaster catches them, their asses will be in a sling.”

A bit before nine, Edward C. Damon conducted male cigar smokers to the library, and various ladies withdrew to the house's many powder rooms. Willard Blunt and Emily Damon went up the grand staircase followed by the stares of the guests remaining in the ballroom. In not too long a time, the paste emeralds would make their appearance and the drama of the evening would approach its climax. My stomach was growling a bit, so I walked around and looked for college party crashers but found none. Manly laughter mixed with cigar smoke filtered out of the library. Royal or boardroom humor, no doubt. I couldn't find Amelia.

I expected the pastes to show up in about half an hour, a time span adequate, I thought, for the ladies to return from the powder rooms and for the gentlemen to finish their cigars.

I wondered why Zee had to be in Boston the whole weekend.

About fifteen minutes had elapsed when I happened to pass an alcove off a hallway and heard an angry voice that surely was Helga Johanson's. A man's voice, touched by British accents, responded. I looked in.

There was a Venetian etching by Whistler on the wall. In front of it the Padishah of Sarofim stood eye to eye with Helga Johanson, one of her wrists caught in his hand, his other arm hooked around her waist. He seemed to be of amorous inclination. As I appeared, he started, then glared at me.

“Out!” he said, with an angry nod toward the door. “We wish to be alone!”

His tone was that of a man used to having such wishes instantly obeyed. I stepped closer, and Helga Johanson turned her head and saw me. She turned back and said in a low voice, “Let me go.”

He did not. Instead, his hand tightened on her wrist, and I saw her wince. He was not a small man.

“Get out!” he said to me, with another sharp nod of his head toward the hall.

Instead, I walked in. His eyes darkened with fury and surprise. I put a hand on his shoulder and shoved. He released Helga Johanson and staggered back, then, spitting out some word I did not understand, regained his balance and swung a bejeweled fist at my face. I caught it on my arm and put a short right into his body, just below the rows of medals that adorned his chest. The air drove out of his lungs, and he doubled over. I looked at Helga Johanson.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Look out!”

I looked back at the Padishah and saw him groping at the holster on his belt. He was having trouble catching his breath. I grabbed his wrist, twisted the pistol from his hand, and pushed him back against the wall.

“You'll thank me for this someday,” I said to him, “because now you still have both of your testicles in working order. American women have knees as hard as their fists, and you remember how hard one of those can be. And just in case you're wearing your cast-iron jock strap, Ms. Johanson knows some other ways to make you walk funny for the rest of your life.”

He glared, gasping for air. I dropped the magazine from his pistol into my pocket, added the bullet in the firing chamber, and dropped the pistol on the floor.

“I'll give your ammunition to Thornberry Security
when I leave tonight. Meanwhile, I think we should all just forget this ever happened. After you, Ms. Johanson.”

Helga Johanson gave him a shriveling look, rubbed her wrist, and brushed out past me.

“This is twice you and your women have laid hands on my person,” he hissed.

“Let us hope there is not a third time, Your Majesty.” I bowed and followed Helga.

I caught up with her in the ballroom. She said some unladylike words, then gave a thin smile. “I hope he believes I'm as tough as you said I am, because I am, even though I can hardly walk in this damned skirt, let alone defend myself.” She took my arm, then, rather selfconsciously, I thought, released it. “You got there just in time to save him, though I don't know what you did for friendly American-Sarofimian relations. I suspect he now regrets having sent his bodyguard away so he could be alone with me. Let's have a drink. Isn't this an interesting evening?”

At the bar we both had sodas with twists. I gave her the Padishah's ammo, and she put it into her little evening purse. I was glad that Colonel Ahmed Nagy had been sent away by his master. I was not sure that Helga could have handled him. For that matter, I was not sure that I could have handled him. Colonel Nagy did not have a merciful face.

“How did that slimeball corner you, anyway?”

“I was in there looking at the etching on the wall. He followed me in. I believe he has overindulged in spirits, as they say. Besides, he's used to being a Padishah. I'm personally inclined at the moment to throw my weight behind the revolution.”

“Dangerous talk, woman. We're supposed to be busy here, cementing international relations. The Padishah thinks of you as one of my women. What do you think of that?”

“He also thinks I should be one of his. He lives in a fantasy world. I advise you not to do the same.” She glanced at the watch on her wrist. “Almost time for the pastes to make their appearance.”

Most of the guests apparently agreed. They had crowded into the ballroom and were glancing openly up the stairway. The Padishah himself, accompanied by Colonel Nagy, had also appeared, looking regal and only slightly ruffled. He was careful not to look at Helga Johanson and me. Colonel Nagy, on the other hand, looked at us carefully, his eyes hooded, his face passionless. I stared back at him. Some sort of electricity tingled between us. I felt as though I had touched a hot wire.

A ripple of applause drew my eyes to the staircase. There, Emily Damon, arm in arm with the gaunt, dignified form of Willard Blunt, descended, a necklace of gold filigree and green stones glittering at her throat.

The ripple became louder, and Emily Damon smiled and waved a graceful hand. A few steps from the bottom of the stairs she paused and lifted both hands. The applause and voices in the room silenced.

“I want you to know that this is not the real thing!” She touched the necklace and smiled, and there was laughter. She gestured again, and silence returned. “This wonderful paste necklace will be placed in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution as a memento of the century and a half when the Sarofim emeralds were in the keeping of an American family,
my
family, and as a remembrance of the return of the emeralds tonight to their rightful owner!” Applause. Smiles from Damons and the Padishah. Silence once more. “And now, if you will help me, Willard, I will give this necklace to my beloved sister, Amelia, who will accept it on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution.”

Blunt bent his tall frame and unfastened the necklace, and I saw Amelia come forward, smiling but pale. Emily Damon fastened the necklace about Amelia's neck, and
the applause rose again. I left Helga Johanson and shouldered my way through the crowd. I heard Emily Damon's voice say, “There you are, my dear. And now, ladies and gentlemen, and you, Your Royal Highness, if you will be patient with me, I will return in a few minutes.”

I was wondering if Amelia had heard something about Zee. Was that why she was so pale? I got close to her and found her surrounded by women admiring the necklace. She saw me and gestured, and I found her arm. She smiled at the ladies and allowed them to touch the famous pastes, but then put a hand to her stomach.

“You will forgive me, friends, if I allow myself to be conducted to the library by this young man. I'm not feeling well and I must lock away these glass jewels so that they're not humiliated by the real thing.” Expressions of sympathy emanated from the women and men nearest to her. Smiling and nodding, her arm in mine, she moved toward the library. A sort of path opened before us as the crowd turned its attentions back to the stairway. Helga Johanson, wearing a concerned frown, joined us as we left the room.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Muleto.”

“There's a loo just this side of the library, I believe. I've got to make a quick stop.”

“I'll go in with you, Mrs. Muleto,” said Helga.

“Thank you, my dear. Don't worry, J.W., I've just got a bit of a bellyache. Too much champagne, probably. We'll be right out.”

They passed into the room, and I leaned against the wall and thought that men and women surely had different attitudes toward going to the toilet. For women it's a social event. They go together, chatting and making an occasion of it. At a party or a restaurant a woman will say, “I've got to go to the ladies'. Would anyone else like to come?” And all of the other women at the table will jump up and say, “Yes, yes, we'll come too.” And off they'll go together. For a man, going to the toilet is a
lonely bit of work. Men do not invite other men to join them in the John. I was still weighing this curiosity of gender when Amelia and Helga came out again.

Amelia smiled. “I'm much better now. We'd better hurry this necklace into the library safe so we can be back in time to see Emily's grand entrance!”

We opened the library door and went in. The smell of cigar smoke was still heavy in the air though the room was empty. Amelia waved a hand as if to fan the odor away as we crossed to the safe. She opened the small silver purse she carried and took out a scrap of paper.

“The combination,” she said. “Edward entrusted it to me for the occasion.” She knelt and spun the dial on the ancient safe. I admired the statue on top of it and noted that it was not of a goddess at all, as I had earlier guessed, but of Pandora looking dreamily at a small box in her hand.

The safe door swung open. Amelia lifted her hair from her neck. “If you will, J.W.”

I undid the clasp, and the necklace slid into her hands. She held it for a moment, then placed it in the safe, closed the door, and spun the knob. Then she rose, found matches by an ashtray, and lit the scrap of paper containing the combination. The paper flamed in the tray and became ash. Amelia smiled and we went out. “Just in time to catch Emily descending,” she said.

But Emily Damon did not descend the stairs wearing the fabulous necklace. Instead, Jason Thornberry appeared at the top of the stairs and hurried down. Helga Johanson, seeing him, moved swiftly away from Amelia and me and met him. They talked and threw glances around the room. My eye caught hers and she gestured. I touched Amelia's arm and crossed the room. Helga's voice was low and urgent.

“There's been a robbery! The emerald necklace is missing! It was there when Mr. Blunt took the pastes out of the safe, but it's gone now!”

Thornberry's face was expressionless. “I don't want anyone to leave, and that goes particularly for any of these reporters. You take the front door and make sure no one goes by you. Stay there until you're relieved!” He dipped his head and spoke into his lapel mike, giving orders to someone not at hand. Marks, the Outside Man? Then he and Helga moved away and I moved to the door and tried to look impressive.

The crowd whispered and looked confused. Across the room the Padishah was receiving a message from his secretary.
The
message, I took it from the look of consternation on the royal face.

“What's going on?” asked the grandfatherly ex-television anchorman. He still had a nose for the news.

I told him what I'd heard. He grunted, and his eyes lit up. “Better than the average party.” He grinned and walked away. At the top of the stairs a man wearing clothes at least as nice as my own appeared and stood with crossed arms. The troops were being positioned.

Three reporters made gallant efforts to pass me, but were denied and rushed off elsewhere looking for unguarded phones or exits. I didn't have to shoot a single one of them.

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